From Weirdos to Sweethearts
by Sara Jaye
Summary: A series of CoryxTopanga ficlets, unconnected and unrelated.
1. Questions Without Answers

"Questions Without Answers"  
by Sara Jaye 

For 30smiles on LJ

* * *

"I can't believe you actually thought you were turning into a werewolf," Topanga laughed. "Didn't you ever stop to think the fortune teller was a little...well, off?"

"Hey, everything she said would happen, happened!" Cory said.

"Don't you think it was a little strange how she just happened to pop up at the same time the wolf escaped? And the day before Halloween?" Topanga asked. "That probably wasn't even a wolf that bit you."

"Well, maybe." Cory shrugged, the leaves crunching under his feet as he walked. "But it could have been! They still haven't found it, you know. It could be lurking about this very minute, watching us!"

Topanga laughed.

"You don't actually believe that, do you?"

"Why not?" Cory looked offended. "There's no proof that werewolves don't really exist!"

"And there's no proof that they do exist," Topanga countered.

"Then how do we know which one of us is right?" Cory asked.

"We don't," Topanga said. "And we probably never will."

"But one of us has to be right!" Cory protested.

Topanga laughed.

"Remember that math problem Mr. Feeny gave us in the sixth grade? Two guys washing the car?" she asked. Cory stared.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Remember how we all learned there isn't always a right answer, or sometimes there's more than one? If I remember correctly, you were the one who said so...after your mother told you, of course," Topanga said.

"Right, after I found out she and dad were sneaking off for romantic evenings every week," Cory said. "I still don't see what that has to do with werewolves, though."

Topanga smiled.

"This is another instance where there's no right or wrong answer, Cory. The existence of werewolves is an age-old debate, and we may never have a definite answer," she said. "Now let's talk about something more interesting."

Cory, a little slow on the uptake, just blinked.

"What do you mean we might never have a definite answer?" he asked.

"So, that was a nice party," Topanga said, eager to push the conversation elsewhere.

"Hey, come on! Don't leave me hanging here, Topanga!" Cory begged. "What did you-"

"Cory!" Topanga sighed. "What will it take to stop your obsession with this so-called werewolf?"

Cory suddenly grinned.

"So, about that kiss in my room earlier..."

Topanga blushed fiercely.

"Let's go back to the wolves!"

"Oh, no you don't," Cory taunted. "You asked what it'd take to get my mind off the wolves, and this is it!"

"Cory!"

"Come on, be honest...you didn't even try to stop me back there. Go ahead, tell me how dangerous I am!"

Topanga took his hand, lacing their fingers together.

"Will you settle for 'unpredictable'?" she asked.

Cory's teasing expression softened into a genuine smile.

"Yeah."

The werewolf question forgotten, they walked the rest of the way talking easily about school and other things.

But Cory was still determined to get a straight answer from someone. 'Maybe not tonight, maybe not even a week from now, but sooner or later,' he thought.


	2. Caring

When Mr. Feeny announced school was closing early due to heavy snow, Cory had declared this "officially the best day of his short life" and done a victory dance with Shawn. Mr. Feeny couldn't even stop them because everyone else was cheering or dancing or whooping in celebration, even Minkus was looking rather pleased as the students rushed to gather their things and wait for their parents or older siblings to pick them up.

But that had been an hour ago, and Cory was no longer jumping for joy. Of course he'd be among the last one picked up, but even that wasn't what bothered him the most.

What bothered him was that only one other person remained there, and it was the one person he prayed he'd never be trapped in a small space with. Ever.

"Jebediah and Chloe should have been here fifteen minutes ago."

Cory buried his face in his hands as she stated the obvious.

"Maybe their aura train ran out of juice!" he groaned sarcastically. Topanga rolled her eyes.

"I know you're not happy being stuck here with me, Cory, but this isn't exactly my definition of paradise either," she said.

"Then why don't you just _teleport_ your way home?"

"Why do you always make those kinds of remarks?" Topanga crossed her arms over her chest. "They're not funny to anyone but you and your shallow, superficial friends and they're completely ridiculous besides."

"And why do _you_ always have to talk like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're some kind of walking dictionary, spitting out all those big words like you _want_ people to think you're a weirdo," Cory said.

"I don't care if they think that, this is the way I most feel comfortable expressing myself," Topanga said smugly. Cory sighed.

"You do this just to annoy me, don't you?"

They'd been sitting alone in the main office for the last hour. A short time to some, but to Cory it might as well have been a whole day. Topanga had initially been optimistic, but after Mr. Feeny and the secretary had called their parents several times with no luck, it was obviously starting to get to her as well.

"This is so unfair! I should be at Shawn's house playing video games and watching monster movies," Cory groaned. "Or at least at my house chucking snowballs at Eric while he tries to put the moves on Mr. Feeny's niece!"

"Well, I'd rather be at home listening to Chloe's tales of _Yuki-onna_," Topanga said stiffly. Cory cocked an eyebrow.

"You-key what?"

"_Yuki-onna_, a spirit found in Japanese folklore," Topanga explained. "She represents both the harsh and gentle sides of winter snows, though until the eighteenth century she was portrayed as purely evil. Most stories tell of her leading travelers astray so that they freeze to death or actively killing them with her icy breath, but others show her as a benevolent-"

She frowned as she heard obnoxious fake snoring noises from her classmate.

"Sometimes I think you do _that _just to annoy _me_," she snapped.

"No, I did it cause your little snow-lady stories were boring," Cory said. "Look around you, Topanga, kids our age aren't into that kind of stuff!"

"Your peer pressure and glorifying of the prepubescent hive mind has no effect on me, Cory. I've always had enough confidence in myself not to care whether I stick out like a sore thumb," Topanga said. "And frankly, I'd rather be thought of as abnormal than lose my identity in the throngs of plain-wrapped kids at school."

Cory's forehead hit his palm with a loud smacking sound.

"That's it. I'm walking home."

"You can't do that, the roads are a mess and it's ten degrees out there!" Topanga protested. "You'll freeze to death!"

"Well, I'd rather freeze to death than sit here in a room with you for one more minute! In fact, most sane people would!" Cory snapped, the disappointment of a ruined snow day combined with a deep-seated worry about his parents having to drive in all that snow finally getting the better of him. "I don't care how much self-confidence you have, but the fact that Stuart Minkus is the only one who can stand your presence should say something to you!"

Though she did her best to hide it, Topanga was actually hurt by that.

"Now you're just being cruel for the sake of it," she said, her voice breaking.

"Can you blame me?! You don't know how hard it is for a guy to be cool in the sixth grade, and with you hanging around trying to fill my head with new-age enlightenment junk it's a wonder people haven't started thinking I'm a geek by association! I wish for once you'd just look in a mirror and realize how annoying you are!"

To most people his words would seem like petty whining insults, but to a worried and vulnerable young girl they were a slap in the face. With a spiked glove. Before Cory could even spit out some lame attempt at an apology, Topanga sprang up from her seat and fled the building.

"Topang-"

She was gone before he could finish, and she'd left her backpack behind. And here came the sick feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach...or rather, guilt gut.

"Great."

Against his better judgement, he picked up both of their bags and went outside. This day couldn't possibly get any worse, after all.

*

He found her on the steps, sitting with her arms folded over her knees and her face buried in them. And crying. Topanga Lawrence was actually crying over something not related to nature or some hundred-year-old fairytale.

"You forgot your things."

No answer.

"Um...if you're waiting for the snow lady to come and get us she's not gonna show up," he said lamely. She lifted her face and glared icily at him, her face beet-red and covered with frozen tears and snotsicles. _Yech, as if she couldn't be any uglier._

"Are you proud of yourself now that you've supposedly broken me?" she asked. "Although you'd be wrong in thinking that, I'll let you have it. After all, the happiness of shallow eleven year old boys who want to be cool is the most important thing, right?" The sick feeling in Cory's stomach intensified.

"Look, Topanga, all that stuff I said back there...well, I did mean most of it but I didn't mean to make you cry! I didn't even think you'd get upset, you'd just call me some big word that means stupid and go back to glaring at me or something!" he said. "I mean, you said it yourself, you have-"

"Just because I have self-confidence doesn't mean I don't have feelings," she cut him off, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "What hurts me isn't that you find me annoying or even dislike me, but that someone I care about has no qualms in expressing such small-minded hatred."

Cory blinked.

"I know what you're trying to say, but could you say it again in English?"

"Why should I bother?!" she snapped, her glare becoming downright angry. "You made your feelings perfectly clear, Cory Matthews, and to be frank I wish I could hate you as much as you hate me! I mean, you think you're better than me just because you fit in with the hivemind of shallow middle schoolers, but all you are is an annoying immature brat who tries way too hard, makes a fool of himself, then breaks his back trying to win back the favor of his idiotic friends!"

Cory had been about to argue that he didn't hate her, but she'd just hit him where it hurt. And since Cory didn't have the kind of self-esteem she did, _boy_ did it hurt. He sat down at the other end of the wide stone step, not daring to look at her.

"Okay. You win."

"Excuse me?"

"You win. I'm a monster and I should crawl into a hole and never come out!"

She gave a short, rueful laugh.

"Doesn't feel so good on the other side, does it?" she asked smugly.

"For such an enlightened and pure-minded person you really are a jerk."

"Don't think I'm proud of myself," she said. "I spoke the truth, but I didn't enjoy having to hurt you in order to do so."

"That makes two of us," Cory mumbled reluctantly. "Topanga, I didn't say all that stuff because I hate you, I said it because I was angry and you were driving me nuts."

"My reasons are the same," Topanga muttered.

And then they were silent. Snow continued to fall, strangers walked by and stopped occasionally to stare at them, and their parents still failed to arrive. At this rate they'd be there at the normal time school let out, and it'd be like he'd suffered through a whole day of school.

_Greatest day of my short life. Not._

"Topanga?"

"Yes?"

"Did...you mean it before, when you said you cared about me? And that's why what I said made you cry?" he ventured. Topanga snorted.

"You really are quite dense, aren't you?"

"Well, you keep giving me mixed signals! First you're trying to get close to me with your ancient fairytales and karma magic, the next minute you think I'm a a big loser with stupid friends," Cory said. "So you can't blame a guy for not knowing what to think!"

"That's because your definition of 'caring' is when people stroke your ego, support your crazy schemes and let you win at Mortal Kombat," Topanga said. "Whereas to more evolved minds, caring also means taking the time to criticize you when you're acting foolish and point out your flaws in hopes that you might try to better yourself."

For some reason, it was easier to understand her this time.

"So...real caring is telling me why I suck?"

"And telling you all the good things about yourself as well as trying to include you in their activities," Topanga said.

"See, there's the problem. Your activities bore me and when you tell me I suck you never follow it up with why I don't," Cory argued.

"Caring also means-"

"It's too cold for an epic debate on the definition of a word, okay? I'm freezing my butt off out here!" Cory whined. Topanga rolled her eyes.

"You know, if you hadn't upset me in the first place we wouldn't be out here," she said.

"Oh, so it's my fault? You know, you're the last person I'd expect to give anyone that kind of garbage, Miss Lawrence," Cory laughed.

"And you're the last person I'd expect to come running out after me, Mr. Matthews...hey, if you cared enough to run after me in the first place I don't know what I was crying about!" Topanga smirked, sidling up next to him. "You_ don't_ dislike me as much as you claim to!"

_Oh no. I knew I was gonna live to regret it, I just didn't know it'd be this soon!_ Cory tried to pull away, but she had him cornered and was staring him in the face. _Argh, her chapped nose and red cheeks and the snowflakes stuck in her frizzy mop of hair look good from this angle-no, no, I did not just think that, the cold is killing my brain and making me go crazy. That's all!_

"I just wanted to get girly flowered bag outta my face before the flowers ate me!" he protested lamely. "Seriously, you might wanna check those things and make sure they're not alive!"

"You're such a bad liar, Cory."

"You're being pretty immature for someone so enlightened!"

"Maybe you're rubbing off on me."

Their bodies were pressed too close together for his comfort, but it was undeniably warmer than sitting apart. Even her hair brushing against his cheek felt nice. Well, as nice as it could with snowflakes nesting in it and melting against his skin. Before he knew it, his arm was around her waist, pulling her against him.

"If we're gonna be stuck here any longer without blankets or a campfire, I'm using you as a heater," he said. She gave no protest, only a smug smile.

_Great. Since when did I get done in by a girl crying who wasn't Mom or Morgan? You win this round, Topanga, but I'm gonna get you back one of these days!_

*

Ten minutes later, Amy pulled up at the side of the building. Cory and Topanga sprang apart and ran to the car.

"What took you so long?!" Cory gasped.

"I'm sorry, but your father was tied up at work, I had to pick up Morgan from preschool and take her home before she got too cold, the car stalled...Topanga, your parents couldn't even get their car out of the driveway so I'll be driving you home as well," Amy rambled. "I hope you weren't waiting out here too long."

"Thank you, Mrs. Matthews. And no, we weren't out here for more than ten minutes at most," Topanga said.

"Yeah, we just...sat and did nothing while we waited!" Cory lied. Amy gave her son a knowing smile.

"I could see that."

"Mom, I'm warning you-"

"I won't even say it. You've been through enough, so I promise not to say a single word about what I saw," Amy said. _At least for the rest of the afternoon._

"_Thank you_," Cory sighed as he and Topanga climbed into the back seat. Amy was careful to note that he held the door open and let the girl get in first, and that they sat side by side rather than each of them grabbing a window seat.

_Amazing what a little snow can do, isn't it?_


	3. No Happy Endings

"We need to talk."

The severity of his tone frightened Topanga a little, but she held firm.

"Okay," she said.

"We need to talk in private. My room, Shawn's out," Cory said, grabbing her hand.

"Fine." Topanga followed him, bracing herself for another impassioned speech about love overcoming everything._ You just don't know when to give up._

Once inside, Cory shut the door, sat down on the bed, and motioned for her to join him. She remained standing.

"Okay, let's talk," she said.

"You proposed to me, you bug me to set a date, you nag me about the details, then you have the gall to say it's off and you don't want to be with me anymore?" Cory stood up and glared at her. "That is not cool, Topanga. You don't put a guy through months of planning hell just to say it's off!"

"Cory, don't start."

"Well, it isn't! Either you give me back the time I lost running around picking a hall and setting a date and having nightmares about killing everyone, or we get married!" Cory said.

"I can't marry you, Cory," she said flatly.

"Why?! Just because your parents-"

"Yes, that's exactly why!" Topanga yelled. "If my parents aren't together anymore, I don't believe in love. I don't want to hurt you, so it has to be over between us."

"But-"

"Love doesn't exist," she said. Cory twitched, made a frustrated growling noise, and hit the wall with his fist.

"Oh, for-'our relationship has to be over, there's no love, we can't get married, my parents broke up so there's no such thing as love, boo hoo hoo' _cry me a freakin' river!_" he snapped. "Look, I'm sorry your parents got divorced, but ever since you came back you've been moaning and whining about how you wanna call off the wedding because there's no such thing as," he emphasized the last word with finger-quotes, "love."

Topanga jumped a little in surprise, then quickly turned to glare at him.

"And ever since I came back you haven't listened to a thing I said! All you've been talking about is getting married and love getting us through everything and how 'special' we are!" she shot back. "You're being completely insensitive!"

"And you're being selfish!" Cory yelled. "You act like you're the only person in the world whose parents ever got a divorce!"

"I know I'm not! But right now I'm feeling pounds of crushing angst and pain and you don't even care, you just want to get me over it so we can go back to our happy little fairy tale life of-HEY!" Topanga screamed as her hand was caught in a vice-like grip.

"Enough!" Cory growled, squeezing her hand tightly, his gaze burning into her. "Okay, so maybe I was a little insensitive-"

"A little?!"

"Okay, I'm a big fat jerk and I have no idea what you're going through right now, because my family is _perfect!_" Cory sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry my family is so perfect I can't relate to your crushing angst and pain." He let go of her fingers and slumped down on the bed. Topanga sighed, rubbing her hand.

"Cory..."

"No, you're right. Maybe I am living in a fairy tale thinking true love exists," Cory said. "Maybe I shouldn't have tried to drag you in there with me, I should've just let you stay in the real world with all that pain."

"Do you think I enjoy this?" Topanga asked. "Do you think I like feeling all this pain, knowing the one relationship I believed in my whole life is over?" She sank down on the bed. "Knowing the same thing could very well happen to us years down the line?"

"But we love each other," Cory protested. He tried to put an arm around her; she pulled away.

"Only in a fairy tale," she said, turning away from him.

"Topanga-"

"Please don't talk," she cut him off.

"How are we going to work this out if we don't talk?" Cory asked.

"Look...I _want_ to be in that fairy tale with you, where love exists and people don't hurt each other. But how can I, knowing what the reality is?" she asked.

"Look at me," he said.

"Cory-"

He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to turn her head.

"We're not your parents, we're not my parents, we're not Shawn and Angela," he said. "We're us, and we've always believed in true love. We've always overcome the odds, and we always will overcome the odds. Because we believe. _That_, my dear, is reality."

"Then why do people hurt each other?" Topanga asked. "If love exists, why-"

"Weren't you listening? We're not your parents," Cory said.

Topanga sighed.

"Look...I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but the fact is, right now I just can't see this 'reality' you're trying to show me. Not when I feel this bad," she said. "I'm sorry, Cory."

Cory pulled back and turned his gaze to the floor.

"And...I'm sorry for being insensitive," he said quietly. "I still think you're being stubborn and selfish, but...there's nothing I can do about it, is there? Maybe Martin Luther King could change the world with a speech, but..."

"You tried, Cory." Topanga drew her knees to her chest and hugged herself. "And I do appreciate it."

Cory sighed.

"So that's it. It's...it's really over this time, isn't it."

She didn't answer.

"Well, that settles it, then." Cory stood up and went to open the door. "You can go now."

"I'm sorry, Cory." Topanga's eyes filled with tears as she stood up and began to walk out. "Goodbye."

The door clicked shut, and he was left staring at his engagement ring.

_Only in a fairy tale._

Trying to reunite her parents hadn't worked. Trying to talk some sense into her himself hadn't.

_Everything I believed is wrong._

He threw the ring onto the dresser and sat down hard on the bed. Tears burned his eyes and stubbornly refused to fall.

_Why?_

Outside, Topanga slumped against the wall, tears pouring down her cheeks. She didn't care who saw her.

_I do love you, Cory...that's why. My tears would only ruin your fairy tale._


End file.
